Not much time was wasted in port. Two days after arriving, on May 10th, the bunkers were filled with coal, and there was precious little cursing over the hard and dirty job which had so often caused the crew to agree that what General Sherman said about war was absurdly inadequate. It was different now. Every shovel and basket of coal meant steam to shove the old boat nearer home. That homeward-bound pennant trailed jubilantly from the masthead, a silk streamer of red, white, and blue, one hundred and eighty feet long, into whose folds had been fondly stitched the desires, the yearnings, the anticipations of every man in the ship. Only a few of them had stood, with bared heads, on the _Corsair’s_ deck when she had been formally commissioned as a fourth-rate gunboat of the United States Navy in May of 1917, and the bright ensign had whipped in the breeze. Many of that company had seen service in other ships and some were civilians again, but memory was apt to hark back to the _Corsair_ with a certain affection and regret. And wherever they were to be, these youthful sailors would feel a thrill of pride and kinship at sight of a Navy man and they would kindle to the sentiment: “But there’s something at the heart-strings that tautens when I meet A blue-clad sailor-man adrift, on shore leave from the fleet.” Lieutenant McGuire, bred to the sea and experienced in ships, thought it over after he came home and wrote these opinions of the _Corsair’s_ company and the work they did: It was a pleasure to watch how eagerly the boys took hold of their new jobs and how rapidly they became good sailors. For a comrade to stand by in danger, give me first of all a plain, every-day, American gob. He is not so much on the parade stuff, but offer him a chance to risk his skin or his life for his friend or his flag and he is there every time. If this war has helped us as a nation in no other way, it has, I believe, taught hundreds of thousands of men the meaning of their country’s flag, taught them to love it as their own, and that to die for it is an honor to be prized. While the duty abroad was pretty strenuous at times, yet the average American has the faculty of making friends in every port, which helped to pass the few hours at his disposal when not engaged in coaling ship. How we did envy the boys in the oil-burners! The chief petty officers and petty officers of the American Navy are exceptionally intelligent and proficient in their duties, and on many occasions helped the average Reserve officer over rough places. I also felt great admiration for the officers with whom I served and came in contact, both Regular and Reserve. CHAPTER XIII HONORABLY DISCHARGED